Village and high school teaching

We got back from the Hmong village yesterday afternoon. That was a wonderful experience! We enjoyed painting the inside and outside of a small church there - it only took about 4 hours to paint the walls and window trim and stain the shutters. I hope to post pictures soon.

After that, we all waded in a river there. So refreshing! However, it was a bit awkward for us and more for the local people - there was one woman upstream from us who discretely took a bath right in the river wearing a sarong. This is a place for kids to swim, people to bath etc. We ate supper there, cooked by some Hmong women - purple sticky rice and regular white rice, pork and beans, ginger and pork and a spicy salsa-like condiment. Delicious though very different from Thai food. After that, we attended a prayer service at the church. Cacophany of prayer! The way they pray is to name the prayer request and then pray all at once together. Nice, because then we could participate. We went to bed right afterward. In fact, the village was quiet by 8. We went to bed around 9. The guys slept in one house and the girls in another. We had brought sleeping bags from home and Narola had bought sleeping mats. Few of us slept more than a few hours unfortunately. The village was alive with sounds of...roosters crowing at all hours, dogs barking and women preparing breakfast from 4:30 onward.

So we emerged from our sleeping bags at 8 very sleepy and mostly not in very good moods - except for Sherry who is a morning person and seems to always be in a good mood! Breakfast was leftovers from the night before. I wasn't too excited to eat rice yet again but settled down once I got some instant coffee and orange juice that I had brought from Pua. We attended church in the village which was neat - a small congregation of faithful Christians. Sherry gave her testimony and we sang a few songs for them. Mak preached and the pastor translated into Hmong. It was also really neat because they had a child dedication for a very young couple. We drove back to the resort in Pua right away. We rested, Josie and I bought and ate a delicious, very juicy pineapple that cost only about 60 cents, I found a bakery which had nice banana muffins. In the evening, we ate at a very nice outdoor restaurant on a hill overlooking the town of Pua.

This morning, we started teaching at a high school here. First, we were introduced in the morning assembly. We each introduced ourselves in Thai and then some students pinned corsages of the school flower on each of us. We were treated like royalty or superstars! After that, we taught two or three classes. John and I had a break for the first period. We then taught two classes of grade 11 students. That was fun, playing charades with them and talking about the sports and activities they enjoy.

This afternoon, we celebrated the birthdays of three members of the team (Sherry, Mike and Eric) as well as Narola. She had a carrot cake and we had bought ice cream. How nice! What a wonderful blessing Mak and Narola are!

Update on health - I'm still not feeling 100%, still suffering from a cold especially in the mornings and evenings. We will have the day off tomorrow which will be very nice. I will sleep in and later will go visit my Thai parents who I lived with when I was first here 10 years ago. So please continue to pray for health for our team, a good rest tomorrow and continued success with our teaching the following 3 days.